Scottish hopes are rising, which normally puts everyone on tenterhooks. Optimism is usually accompanied by scepticism at times like this.
The euphoria of qualifying for Euro 2020 was followed by a winless grind when the tournament came around. The impressive push for the last World Cup only for Ukraine to hammer Scotland in the play-off. The undiluted euphoria of making Euro 2024 and then the grisly non-performances in Germany.
The national psyche is complex when things are going well. Clarke and his players in the United States, Canada or Mexico? You could understand if the Tartan Army viewed it as too good to be true.
Fatalism has been their friend on occasion. As far as qualifying for men’s World Cups go, caution has served Scotland fans well this past 27 years.
They’ve been excluded, nose pressed against the window, for six straight World Cups. Sixty-one different countries have played in a World Cup game since the Scots last did it. Togo and Trinidad & Tobago, North Korea and New Zealand, Angola and Iran. And Panama, for goodness sake.
Making back-to-back Euros was great – the results when there, not so great – but World Cup campaigns have brought nothing but disappointment.
There was no social media when Scotland were last at the top table, no digital cameras, no wifi for the masses, no Scottish parliament at Holyrood.
Since Scotland and Brazil opened the tournament in June 1998, there’s been seven Scottish First Ministers, eight UK Prime Ministers and nine Scotland football managers.
As promising as things look for Clarke’s team right now, not many supporters will be letting their guard down just yet.
They’ll be thinking about Greece landing a serious blow, just as they did in March. A Nations League game that was supposed to serve up a performance befitting the recently-deceased Denis Law turned into a Greek rout; 3-0 going on plenty more.
John McGinn called that Scotland display “embarrassing” and it was. By turns, the Greek players used the same kind of language when describing their own 3-0 home defeat by Denmark in the last international window.
For a side that had put three on Scotland, four on Slovakia, four on Bulgaria and five on Belarus in their games leading up to Denmark, it was a shock to the system.
With their youth and class they were being described as one of the emerging forces of European football only to crash and burn in their own place against the Danes.
What to make of them now? A young team that’s perhaps not as devastating as Scotland made them look last spring? Or a formidable outfit that just had an off night? Clarke being Clarke, he’ll assume the latter.
